


United We Stand. Divided We Fall

by creatureofhobbit



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 20:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10257821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Matt's furious with Kelly, but also with himself.





	

Once the dust of Mystic Falls’s second answer to the Red Wedding had settled, Matt’s thoughts initially turned to anger. He was the next of kin, for God’s sake, the last remaining family member, how was it possible that Kelly had been dead for two years and no one had notified him? He’d even gotten as far as calling the police department in the town in South Carolina where Kelly’s accident had happened and given some poor person on the end of the phone an earful about it before she eventually got a word in and said that yes, there had been a body found in the right time period matching the description Matt had given, but she had been carrying no ID, no phone and so they had been unable to either identify her or know that he was the point of contact.

Once he had calmed down, he realised a lot of his anger was at himself. That phone message from Kelly, four years ago, it had just sounded like drunken nonsense, with “Matty” the only coherent word. It had been not that long after they had all found out that Liz Forbes was dying, when Bonnie was still missing, and Matt just didn’t feel he could deal with Kelly at the time. After Liz’s memorial, a part of him had wondered whether he should have called her back, but he had decided against it and put it out of his mind. He wasn’t in the right place to deal with the usual Kelly Donovan bullshit about men who were younger than him, or whatever her latest stupid drama was.

If he had called Kelly back then, could things have been different? Would they have been able to build a relationship again, so maybe she wouldn’t have taken that drunken tumble down that flight of stairs in South Carolina? Or at the very least, would she have had his contact details on her so that someone would have been able to let him know?

Yet at the same time, Matt also felt some anger towards Kelly, for the behaviours that had driven him to that last desperate step of packing up all her things and cutting himself off from her while he was still in high school. Liz Forbes, Alaric Saltzman, Miranda and Grayson Gilbert, even Carol Lockwood, they had all been more of parental figures to Matt than Kelly had ever been. Her inability to hold down a job because she would turn up to work an hour late and drunk, or most recently the time she got fired for sleeping with the boss’s man, meaning that Matt had had to become the main bill payer from the day he was old enough to work, it was too much for him, and that moment when he’d walked in on her and Tyler was the final straw.

Tyler. Not only Matt’s best friend, but Vicki’s ex, which Kelly wouldn’t have even known since she’d had no contact with Vicki in so long before her death. But Matt did know, and seeing Kelly and Tyler like that had felt like an insult to Vicki’s memory (which had been a big part of the reason why he’d thrown her out). 

And yes, Matt had been harsh in not taking her calls, not ringing her back and not ever making the effort to reach out to her. But at the same time, it took two to make the effort, and Kelly had usually only called when she wanted something (nine times out of ten, money), and Matt had to think about all the reasons why he’d broken contact with her in the first place.

Penny had asked him about it when they were drawing up the guest list for their wedding, whether Matt wanted his parents there, and was she ever going to be introduced to Kelly. He had thought about it for a while, but then had decided against it. It was strange to think that at the time they were having that conversation, Kelly must have already been dead and he didn’t know it.

Matt’s friends all wanted to support him, and he knew they were going to try, but after everything that had happened he didn’t feel he was able to ask them to attend any kind of memorial to Kelly. But he had to acknowledge his own part in the disintegration of their relationship, so he knew he had to do something for her, Peter the only one by his side as they laid Kelly to rest beside Vicki, the Donovan family united in a way they hadn’t been for many years.


End file.
